It’s no surprise that mothers find it so hard to live in their empty nests. We’re with our children every day of their lives, then suddenly, whoosh, they’re gone.
My daughter Amy went away to university just weeks ago – well, seven weeks and three days, to be precise. Like all parents, I knew her leaving was inevitable – they have to leave one day – but for me it was especially hard. She’s my only child and we’ve been through a lot together and, as a result, our bond is perhaps even stronger than usual, we are so much more than mother and daughter – we’re best friends. So her leaving has been a double whammy; I’ve lost my daughter and my best friend in one go, and it hasn’t been easy. Sometimes I pretend she’s still here.
Amy may be miles away, living in another town in a different home with new people, but her bubble bath sits in the bathroom, untouched. I’ve left the discarded lipsticks and hairbrush to wait on her dressing table, along with the summer clothes she’s left hanging in the wardrobe. It’s as though time’s stood still in the house, everything on pause until her return, including me I suppose. Yesterday I discovered a box of her favourite peppermint tea in the kitchen cupboard and despite being a hardcore black-coffee girl, I made a cup for myself. The aroma of minty warmth revived me, and continued to permeate the kitchen long after I’d drunk it. I pretended to myself that Amy was just upstairs or on her phone in another room, and got on with my day.
I still find it hard to get my head around the fact she isn’t here, because as every parent knows, once a child lands in your heart, they never leave. From the minute she turned up in my life, a wriggling screaming thing who wrecked my sleep and ruined my career, she was part of me. It’s a physical thing, and even now, when my conscious mind knows she’s miles away, living her life without me, my body clock is still set to coincide with hers. I wake at 7 a.m. in time to drop her off at school. Richard says I must be mad. ‘I’d be staying in bed until ten at least if I were you – free at last,’ he says most mornings as he rushes around the kitchen, abandoning half-eaten toast and fixing his tie, before kissing me. Each morning he heads off into a noisy, busy world of people and their problems, leaving me here in the silence, wondering what to do next. I have my work, of course, but it’s hard to adjust to the fact that no one needs me anymore. For so long I’ve been programmed to fit my life around Amy’s, everything feels so quiet and empty and I never thought I’d say this but I miss her untidiness, her teenage moods, despair dissolving into giggles or tears at a word from me, a text from a friend. Her whole life revolving around her phone and bloody Snapchat – and my whole life revolving around her. At times it was annoying, inconvenient and exhausting – but I miss it like hell. It’s the noise and the needing I miss the most, those simple acts of maternal care: making meals, talking through problems, making her laugh when she was sad – and in more recent years becoming her personal round the clock Uber driver. Unpaid.
Despite being eighteen, I continued to collect her from school, even in sixth form. We live in a fairly rural area, the buses are few and far between, and our house is several miles away from her old school. And there was also the fact that I was worried she might not come home. Those old fears still lurked beneath the surface – they always will. But driving her to and fro was never a chore, it gave structure to my working day and the journey was a pleasure. The car was our little bubble, just the two of us uninterrupted – the chatter, and laughter on the way home, sometimes the tears if someone had upset her, said a mean word, or she’d failed at something. I loved that time of day, when she climbed into the car and I knew she was safe, she always chooses the CD and… Chose. She chose. She’d put a CD on the player for the drive and we’d sing along together, her laughing at my misheard lyrics.
Isn’t it just the worst part of being a mum – that this wonderful, all-consuming job we take on ends too soon? As suddenly and shockingly as they arrive in our world, our children are ready to leave. So here I am now, at 8.30 a.m., alone in the kitchen, my reflection staring back at me from the glass doors in the early-morning darkness. Why did the music, the chatter and the laughter have to stop so abruptly? I’ve been left behind, a heavy blanket of silence folding around me, a slow ache of loss in the pit of my stomach.
I must shake this off, it’s self-indulgent and I’m being ridiculous. What a drama queen I’ve become. It isn’t like I have nothing to do, I have loads of work, some good friends and my own life to lead. But I also have this throb in my throat, and this weird, hollow emptiness that fills me up and grips me like grief. It walks beside me, sits next to me as I type meaningless words on the keyboard, drinks coffee with me, and lies down next to me each night.
It’s like a madness over which I have no control. I can be driving along the road when I hear a song on the radio that she loves and it just grabs me and punches me in the stomach – it floors me. Like now, I’m dressed and ready for work, but as I work from home there’s no escape – my office is here, and I have a whole day stretching before me, and now she’s gone there’s nothing to stop me working, no interruptions, no drama, no school drop off. And I miss it. I’m way overdue with my latest feature, for a parenting magazine, so much for having all this time to myself! I also have some profound wisdom to impart in an article about stepfamilies at Christmas for a website, but just can’t concentrate long enough to write anything. As a journalist who specialises in family issues, and sells herself as an expert in all matters parenting, children and marriage, the irony isn’t lost on me. Little do my readers know I am not the person to be advising anyone on how to be a successful wife and mother. My first marriage was a car crash, and, at forty-five, I’m not ‘living my best life’, as Oprah would ask of me. I’m not an independent woman finding herself after children, I’m an inconsolable mess mourning my eighteen-year-old daughter’s departure to university. And I can’t even channel my feelings to write. I think it was the writer Nora Ephron who said ‘everything is copy’ – and in the past I’ve flogged my life on a freelance basis to anyone who’d buy my features. From parenting an only child to dealing with dodgy ex-husbands, to really difficult stuff I hated sharing, I’ve managed to do it and make a living. But yesterday I started on a feature called ‘Ten Ways to Fill Your Empty Nest’ and gave up after number three.
So this morning I’m going to do what I always do when I’m unhappy. I will disregard my own advice, avoid doing the sensible thing (like working, meeting deadlines and eating healthily), defrost half a dozen Danish pastries, turn on the coffee machine and call Zoe.
‘Call it avoidance, procrastination or a mild panic attack, I’m having one of those days when I feel like I’m in the wrong life,’ I say when I call her. Zoe’s always the one I talk to when I need someone to put things into perspective – and she always cheers me up. Zoe and I go back a long way, she only lives just down the road and recently took redundancy from her job in PR, which means she’s now available on a daily basis for procrastination and pastries. I tell her it’s her duty as a friend to distract me from work and assist me in carb comfort and today she is as happy as ever to fulfil her obligation.
‘Put that kettle on, I’m on my way, love,’ she sing-songs down the phone.
Zoe understands me like no one else. She has a daughter the same age as Amy, she knows my history, everything we’ve been through, and she’s always around to hold my hand when I’m shaky. I do the same for her, but Zoe’s a lot more resilient than me and doesn’t need her hand holding quite as much, she’s one of life’s copers. The only real trauma Zoe has suffered was when Jodie failed to get the ridiculously high grades she needed to be accepted to do Medicine at university. Knowing Jodie’s academic track record, I could have predicted there’d be trouble ahead, but Zoe has always been blindly ambitious for her only child. As much as I love my best friend, I’ve always felt the whole ‘my daughter the doctor’ thing was more about Zoe than anything Jodie’s ever wanted. Anyway, at the age of eighteen, Jodie finally rebelled and when she didn’t get the required grades, Zoe insisted she go to Worcester University to study Human Biology. It isn’t Medicine at Durham, but Zoe doesn’t give up and has a cunning plan for Jodie to transfer to the degree in Medicine further down the line.
Within half an hour of my call, Zoe’s at the door, and as I open it, she’s complaining about a dent in her car and the weather while telling me everything will be fine.
‘Are you suffering a bit today?’ she asks, shaking her umbrella on the doorstep, droplets of water landing on the wooden floor.
‘Oh, I’m fine, just being silly,’ I say, helping her off with her damp jacket as she checks her hair in the mirror, fluffing it with her hands. ‘I should be over this moping around. I mean, Amy’s perfectly happy, and missing her is just selfish. Sorry I’m being a pain.’
‘No, it isn’t selfish, Kat,’ she says following me through the hall into the kitchen. ‘I’ve told you before, never apologise for how you feel.’ She’s suddenly distracted by the cinnamon warmth in the air. ‘Is that delicious smell what I think it is?’ she asks, walking into the kitchen.
‘Yes, those frozen Danish,’ I smile, and for a moment I’m soothed. I have something to do, someone to look after. In the absence of Amy, I will feed Zoe, who’s now sniffing the air.
‘Danish? You know me so well – I’m a slut for Danish pastries.’
‘I heard,’ I giggle. ‘And I’m happy to pay you in sweet pastries for therapy,’ I laugh. ‘Honestly, you’re the only one who understands. Richard’s very sympathetic, but he doesn’t really get just how much I miss Amy,’ I say, turning on the kettle. ‘He has this logical approach that transforms all my agony into numbers. “She’s only a hundred and twenty miles away,” he says, “if you’re missing her you could get in the car and be with her in two hours… if you set off back about four, you’d be home before seven.” But those are just numbers, and he may as well be saying she’s on the other side of the world.’
Zoe laughs. ‘Yeah, and in theory it’s all well and good, but you can’t just turn up at her halls and say “Hi, I was just passing,” she’d think you’d lost it. It would probably freak her flatmates out too.’
‘Wouldn’t it just? Amy would go mad. “OMG, Mum, I can’t believe you’d show me up like that. I can’t deal…” I say in my ‘teenager’ voice. ‘Thing is, Richard doesn’t really understand. He always points out, “I’m here for you, Kat, it isn’t like you’re on your own,” but it’s not the same, is it? That bond between mother and child – it’s something he doesn’t get.’
‘Yeah, must be even harder for Richard to understand, being her stepdad.’
‘Well, he’s as good as her real dad… better actually. It’s just he doesn’t have that maternal thing going on,’ I say.
‘Well, at least you’ve got someone in the house with you. Count yourself lucky. I’m completely on my own now Jodie’s gone. I thought it would be great, a house full of toy boys and a lot of pleasing myself – but it’s so…’ she starts, and then we both say in unison, ‘quiet.’
‘And to think we used to complain about how noisy they were and how we never had any time to do anything for us,’ I add, trying to continue the jokey theme, but failing as I feel that stab of emptiness prodding me in the chest again.
‘And now we’ve got all the time in the world,’ she smiles, detecting the pain in my eyes. ‘Hey, Kat, I just had the most brilliant idea to cheer us both up – let’s book a spa day.’
‘Great idea!’ I look at her and see a look of pain shimmer across her face. My friend is so supportive that it’s easy to forget that she’s going through exactly the same as I am – just not whingeing as much as me. ‘Zoe, I know it’s not easy for you all on your own, and you’re always there for me,’ I say, feeling like a spoilt bitch. ‘But I’m here for you too, don’t forget that.’ She nods and reaches for my hand and we stand by the oven, two mums who’ve shared so much now sharing this next stage. The older you get the more you realise how transient people are and good friends are one of the few constants in life, and have to be valued. How insensitive of me to be complaining when my friend’s going through the same and she doesn’t even have a partner.
‘It’s easier for me, Jodie’s only a few minutes away.’
‘I know, but you live alone now, your whole life has changed. Amy doesn’t live here anymore – but Richard still does.’
‘Not the same though is it?’ she says.
‘No.’ I pause, as the feeling hits me again. It’s a constant ache, I miss having her around, chatting – just being with each other, talking politics, climate change, lipstick and Love Island. And Zoe’s right, I love Richard, but it isn’t the same – he doesn’t talk make-up and reality shows like my daughter. ‘No. Sadly Richard is no replacement for Amy – he’s quite a different housemate,’ I giggle. ‘You know what he’s like, he rarely engages with anything less than Radio 4 or Newsnight. Amy’s always complaining how straight he is.’
‘Yeah, I remember her once saying he thought a Kardashian was a kind of car,’ Zoe laughs.
I laugh along, but cringe slightly at the thought of lovely, kind Richard and his clumsy attempts at being a cool stepdad. ‘He hasn’t got a clue.’ I sigh. ‘He’s this brilliant lawyer at work, fighting for justice, working on really complicated stuff, but sometimes he finds real life a bit too difficult. I tried to talk to him last night, we were in the living room, both staring at the TV, so I said, “Richard, I feel lonely sitting here,” and you know what he did? He came and sat next to me. He took it literally, but I didn’t mean I was lonely because no one was sitting with me…’ I shake my head at the memory. I miss Amy all the more in moments like that – we both always seem to know what the other’s thinking, what the other needs. And as for watching TV together, we didn’t stare at it from different worlds like Richard and I do, an evening watching TV with Amy was a joint activity. We’d talk over it and share our thoughts about what was going on, giggle at first dates, cry over reunited families, rage over cheating lovers. How much I miss her hits me from nowhere once more, and I wonder if we’ll always have the closeness we shared, and if we’ll watch TV together in the same way ever again.
‘If Richard happens to be in the same room when a reality show’s on the TV it might as well be in a different language,’ I say, frustrated. ‘It just isn’t the same… I love him but it isn’t the same’.
‘Love, I know exactly what you mean – you don’t have to explain it to me,’ she laughs. ‘I once had a husband too, remember? Though I’d prefer to forget.’
‘I don’t blame you, he doesn’t deserve to be remembered, bloody cheater,’ I hiss. ‘But Richard’s so sweet, and he does try. I just miss having someone else around who thinks like me, who makes me laugh. Sometimes Amy and I almost don’t need to say things, we know what the other one’s thinking – a reflection of myself, I suppose,’ then I add quickly, ‘not that I’m saying Amy isn’t her own person.’
‘No, of course not. Amy is definitely her own person. I think that was made very clear when you dared to suggest she had a pink princess birthday cake at the age of seven – she put you right, didn’t she?’
‘Oh God, yes, she wanted a Spiderman cake, and the costume – and that’s what she got,’ I can’t help but smile at the memory of the pretty little girl dressed as Spiderman, trying to blow out the cobweb candles while refusing to remove the mask.
‘And Spiderman was a day in the park compared to her reaction when you dared to suggest she attend a university closer to home,’ Zoe remembers.
‘Yeah, that went down like a lead balloon, didn’t it?’ I sigh.
I’d always assumed Amy would want to go to a university closer to home. I felt that she wouldn’t be able to cope without me – turns out I’m the one struggling to cope without her. Anyway, I was pretty horrified when she announced she was going as far away as Aberystwyth, but I gritted my teeth and smiled. She’s like me, we are both quite determined and dig our heels in, so I knew this had to be her decision. And I hate myself for it but when Amy opened that envelope on results day, a little part of me deflated when I saw she had the results she needed to go there. Of course, this tiny little doubt had been almost obliterated by pride and sharing her happiness – but if I’m honest, I still struggle with her choice. Why did my daughter choose Aberystwyth, a place many miles away from home – a home she’s been very happy in?
Even as we planned her move, a little part of me thought (hoped?) she might change her mind at the last minute and go to Worcester or Birmingham, both good universities offering a similar English degree – and both nearer to home. And nearer to me.
‘You’re so lucky that Jodie chose to stay nearby,’ I say, enviously. ‘I worry if Amy gets homesick or, God forbid, she’s poorly, the journey will just add to the crisis,’ I admit, checking my phone to see how long the pastries have been in. I’m also looking at my phone to see if Amy’s been in touch. She has a couple of days study leave and she’s planning to come home for an extended weekend. I’m beside myself with excitement, and as it’s now Thursday, I’m waiting to hear what train she’s getting so I can pick her up from the station. I don’t like to hassle her, anyone with a teenager will know they rarely plan ahead, but I wish she’d let me know when I need to be at the train station to collect her and so I can get everything ready.
‘I’ll need to do some food shopping for the weekend,’ I say, thinking out loud. ‘I don’t know if she’s going out with her friends, or if Josh is coming over.’
‘Josh… oh, so they’re still together?’
‘Yes, even though they’re apart, they’re inseparable, if you know what I mean. I thought when she went to uni it would fizzle out but… if he is coming over I’ll need to plan a meal for both of them.’
‘Did she say he was?’
I shake my head. ‘I did ask, but she was vague, said she didn’t know what his plans were.’
Predictably, I suppose along with being physically far apart, a bit of a distance has begun to emerge between us since Amy went away. It’s perfectly understandable but rather discomforting as we’d always been so close.
‘I can’t get much out of Amy these days,’ I say. ‘She used to tell me everything, but it’s as if eight weeks away at uni has wiped out eighteen years of being friends… she keeps everything to herself now, I feel like I’m playing twenty questions all the time with her.’
‘Oh, tell me about it,’ Zoe laughs. ‘I’m made to feel like the bloody Spanish Inquisition just asking Jodie when she might grace me with her presence. You wouldn’t think she only lives ten minutes down the road, but I never hear from her – unless she’s in trouble or wants more money.’
‘I wish Amy was only ten minutes down the road, but she’s not even in another town, it’s another country, Zoe – it’s Wales, they speak Welsh!’
‘It’s what she wanted. And what Amy wants, Amy gets,’ Zoe says, smiling as I open the oven. ‘She was pretty determined to move away, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I say, still a little hurt that my daughter was so adamant. ‘I knew it would be harder for me to let go the further she was from here.’
‘But it doesn’t matter where they are, we have to let them go sometime, Kat, it’s inevitable.’ She peers in the direction of the oven and adds absently, ‘But right now you’ve got to stop torturing yourself – and get those damned pastries out of the oven. What a shame I didn’t start my diet today,’ she winks at me.
‘If you had started another of your diets I’d just have to eat all six myself,’ I joke, opening the oven, ‘and you know I could.’
‘Oh yes, I’ve seen what you’re capable of eating, especially when you’re feeling a little low,’ she says as a waft of hot, sweet air from the oven takes my breath away. I quickly pick up the hot pastries with the tips of my fingers and throw them onto a plate. ‘That’s why we need a spa day, a detox, a good massage…’ she starts.
‘Do you go into Katie’s room and feel really sad she won’t be sleeping there?’ I interrupt, as I put the plate between us on the kitchen island.
Zoe tilts her head, breaking up one of the pastries with her fingers while considering my question. ‘I do, of course I do – but I just keep reminding myself she’ll be back at Christmas with loads of washing and tons of attitude.’
I’m comforted by her response, and the thought of Christmas. It’s only a few weeks away and I’m looking forward to driving along the mountain road to collect Amy and all her stuff. I’ve promised I’ll wait to decorate the tree, so we can do it together like we always have. I feel a tingle of excitement at the prospect of Christmas and Amy – everything back to normal, and Amy filling our home with chatter and laughter again.
‘I’m excited about her coming home this weekend,’ I say.
‘I bet you are.’
‘I was in her room earlier, I was going to tidy it but I want her to feel at home, so I left it as she did. I go into her room every day,’ I say. ‘I open her drawers and fold her clothes, even though they don’t need folding, check everything’s where it should be, even though no one’s been in there since she left – except me.’ I give a little hollow laugh. ‘I pretend she’s just at school and she’ll be home later for tea. But when I go out in the car, I can’t play her music, the old CDs we’d sing along to when we went anywhere. I can’t listen to Lana Del Ray without sobbing.’ I try and lighten this with a shake of my head and another little laugh, but the look of sympathy on Zoe’s face almost causes me to break. ‘We used to dance round the kitchen to Lana, and when Richard was away working we’d watch TV and eat chocolate flakes and she’d get chocolate bits all over the sofa… and I’d sometimes tell her off. And now I wish she was here messing up the sofa and twirling round the kitchen and…’
She’s looking at me in a really odd way, like I might be going mad, so I take a sip of coffee and address the elephant in the room. ‘Zoe, I know you probably think I’m crazy, I’m not handling this very well, am I? But after everything we went through when Amy was younger, I just feel so…’
‘I know, I know, love,’ Zoe says, reaching across for my hand. ‘I think the kids leaving for uni… well, it’s hit you more than most, and I’m not surprised.’
I nod, unable to speak, afraid my tears will start and never stop. It’s a physical thing, and I know it’s been coming for years, ever since she was born. Each year something lovely would come to an end – reading her bedtime stories, playing games, building sandcastles together, each activity replaced by something else, until at eighteen all she needed me for was food, the odd hug and most importantly – her Uber. But now my fridge is empty and the passenger seat in my car is also pretty empty since Amy went away. But this isn’t just about my daughter leaving for university, it’s about so much more. I’ve told lies, kept secrets from the people I love, and now I’m alone I have more time to think, and it haunts me. Ghosts wake me in the middle of the night, and I’m so scared that the past will reach into the present, and take everything I love.
‘What about a winter break?’ Richard says that evening as we eat dinner together. ‘We could get a cheap flight, a late hotel booking and get away before Christmas.’
I smile. ‘I’m not sure, love, it all feels a bit… forced.’ I know he’s trying to think of nice things we can do together, and I really appreciate it, but I’m not ready to go off on a plane and be in a different country from Amy. Doesn’t he realise the separation is bad enough without adding air miles to my agony. ‘Let’s do something in the spring,’ I say, before adding, ‘perh. . .
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